Interview with Gyo Obata

As the "O" in HOK (Hellmuth, Obata
& Kassabaum Inc.), Gyo Obata is not just the president and
chief executive officer of one of the world's largest architectural
firms. He is the philosophical leader of a staff of 925 architects,
landscape architects, interior designers, engineers and planners
in 12 offices across the country, Europe and Asia.

This internationally prominent firm, under the personal
direction of Obata, will design the Federal Reserve Bank of
Minneapolis' new building. Obata is no stranger to Federal
Reserve banks; he designed the Baltimore branch of the Richmond
Federal Reserve bank, completed a space planning study for
the Cleveland Fed and remodeled the St. Louis Fed's lobby.

Named by Engineering News Record and Building,
Design & Construction as the top architectural
and engineering firm in the country, HOK and Obata are responsible
for projects that range from the National Air and Space Museum
in Washington, D.C., to King Khaled International Airport
in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, to the newly opened Baltimore Orioles
baseball stadium.

Born in San Francisco to artist parents, Obata says he wanted
to be an architect from the time he was six years old. To
reach that goal, Obata studied architecture at the University
of California and Washington University in St. Louis.

But it was at the Cranbrook Academy of Art in Michigan where
Obata studied under the master Finnish architect Eliel Saarinen
that his design philosophy took shape. Following Saarinen's
approach to design, Obata says, "My design philosophy
... is to really understand the client's need ... what that
client and what that building type is calling for it to be."

The following interview offers insight into Gyo Obata's
design philosophy, his approach to new projects and his perceptions
of what the new Minneapolis Fed building ought to be.

Region: You designed the Richmond Fed's Baltimore branch in 1982,
completed a planning study for the Cleveland Fed and renovated the interior
of the St. Louis Fed. What are the special requirements, opportunities
and challenges of a Federal Reserve building?

Obata: A Federal Reserve building is a very interesting
architectural building type. First of all as a building typology
it represents a very important public institution. It has to have
certain meaning to the public when they see that building. Yet,
on the other hand, it's a very highly functional, almost in some
ways an industrial, building because of all the movement of the
checks and the money going through the bank. So it's a very interesting
building type of a highly functional building on one side and yet
it has to represent this very important public institution.

The architect's job is to make sure that the functions are clear
and well-defined for the people who are going to be working in that
building, that it really works well for the people who are in the
Federal Reserve. From an architectural standpoint, we have to give
that building a character that really says this is a Federal Reserve
and we represent the highest ideals of our government.

Region: You designed the National Air and Space Museum
in Washington, DC, the St. Louis Zoo's Living World educational
facility, among other special-use structures. Do you find these
special-use structures particularly challengingopposed to
a corporate office building?

Obata: I find that every project is a new discovery process.
I believe an architect should really understand the client's need
and his ambitions for that building, his idealism of what that building
should be like, the people who work there. Therefore, to me there
is no difference between an air museum or Federal Reserve or corporate
headquarters. I think each one has a very interesting set of requirements
of what it should be. So to me every project is a rebirth of trying
to find the best solution.

Region: What impact will the bank's surroundings have on
your design approach? And what part does the existing physical environment
play in a design scheme for a building?

Obata: If the buildings in the area have important architectural
features, they should somehow be reflected in the new buildingso
the existing physical environment should play a part. Certainly
the location, if it's say near the river and near the central urban
area, has a lot to do with how the building will be placed on that
site, allowing for easy public access, as a gateway towards another
section of the city, and so forth. So the site would be a very important
part of how the building will be formed.

Back again to the idea of relating to the existing buildingsif
the existing buildings are really good architecture, it should relate.
But if they're not important architecturally, then I don't see any
reason to relate to those buildings.

Region: Will you personally lead the Minneapolis Fed's
design team?

Obata: Yes, I'll be designing it.

Region: Who has most influenced your work as a designer?
Do you have any special mentors?

Obata: I grew up in a period when modern architecture was
really at its height. The great masters of our period were Mies
van de Rohe, Frank Lloyd Wright, Le Corbusier and Walter Gropius.
So I grew up in the period when modernism was at its highest point.

Since that time we've become a lot more conscious of the contextural
element to the city. And we've looked back at some of the older
buildings and found that their materials and their humanity had
something to offer rather than very straight glass, boxy buildings.
I think the architects in this decade have been more softened, let's
say.

I think that I'm more interested in the humanistic approach, like
Frank Lloyd Wright and Louis Sullivan, the great American architect
from Chicago. These are important architects to me. I studied with
[Eliel] Saarinen at the Cranbrook Academy of Art. He was a very
famous Finnish architect, and also a humanist. So he had a big influence
on me. In fact, Saarinen did a church in Minneapolis, one of the
big Lutheran churches, I think [Christ Lutheran Church]. Of course
another very great Finnish architect was Aalto. So I'd say that
those architects are people that I look up to.

Region: How would you characterize your approach to design?
What is your design philosophy?

Obata: My design philosophy, as I stated earlier, is to
really understand the client's neednot only its functional
requirement, but what that client and what that building type is
calling for it to be. So an architect has very many variables to
work with, and he has to somehow take all those variables and come
up with what he thinks is the ideal solution to meet the client's
need. It's a great deal of understanding and then looking at what
that building ought to be after all these things.

Region: You've been quoted as saying that you like to work
"from the inside out."

Obata: That means that I want to understand how the people
really work inside that building, in their offices or in, for example,
the Federal Reservehow the whole checking system will work,
how the whole coin and money area will work, and so forth. I want
to make sure that for the people who work in that building, the
environment set up is the best possible one for them.

Region: HOK's sports facilitiesthe Bradley Center
in Milwaukee, Chicago's Comiskey Park and especially Baltimore's
Oriole Park at Camden Yardshave received rave reviews, particularly
from sports fans. Were you involved in any of those sports arena
designs? How did HOK get into that particular field?

Obata: We have a group in Kansas City called HOK Sport
that just does stadiums and arenas and sports facilities for colleges.
I'm involved philosophically with them. In some cases I'm more directly
involvedlike the domed stadium for St. Louis, which I'm working
on with my Kansas City people.

In Baltimore the stadium was going to be placed right in the heart
of the city. What we wanted to do was to make it very open, very
accessible, very welcoming to the baseball fans, not a fortress,
but very much like the older stadiums like Yankee Stadium, and maybe
other stadiums that were torn down. So that's how we made Baltimorevery,
very open to the public, lots of great places to eat and buy things
and watch the ball game.

Region: HOK is such a large firm, with more than 900 employees
in 12 offices, including the sports facilities group in Kansas City
and offices in London, Tokyo, Hong Kong and Kuwait City. Are you
able to monitor all of HOK's work? And how does your staff benefit
from such varied design challenges and cultural diversity?

Obata: I think that the diversity really feeds on itself.
We get a tremendous amount of personal reward from working on such
an interesting variety of projects. And more and more clients are
focusing. What I mean by that is that if you work on an airport,
they want people that really know something about airports, or if
they work on a stadium, people that really know about stadiums,
or if they work on a medical center, people that really know about
medical centers. So we have set up among our offices many of these
focus groups. Our people are very much dedicated in that particular
group and type.

My job, as sort of head of design, is to make sure that the quality
of design is really maintained. I meet maybe twice a year with all
the design heads of all of our offices, and we talk philosophically
about where we're going, what we're trying to do, and so on. I try
to look at most of the projects that all the various offices are
doing to make sure that our design standards are maintained. Then
on certain projects, like the Federal Reserve in Minneapolis, I
promise that I will personally work on that project. I have very
talented people throughout my organization, not only designers but
people in many other fieldsin interiors, planning, landscape
architecture, programming, engineering and so forth.

What we've tried to do is assemble the most talented people that
we could find, and because we're large enough they have the opportunity
to work on a new university for 20,000 people or a whole new airport
or a whole new city. So the people in our office have the opportunity
and also the responsibility to do the best possible work.

Region: Does HOK have a particular signature design element
by which its structures can be identified?

Obata: Our philosophy is to make each project its unique
character. Let that particular project grow out of its particular
needs and requirements.

Region: Landscaping appears to be very integral to virtually
all of HOK's designs.

Obata: That's because we have one of the best landscaping
groups in the country. For example, the Baltimore branch bank is
a very quiet building, and it has wonderful gardens all throughout.
The Baltimore Federal Reserve is interesting. We did that many years
ago, and it was in an area that was being redeveloped. Now that's
where the stadium came, too.

Region: What projects have you recently completed or are
you currently designing in addition to the Fed?

Obata: One of my most interesting projects is for the Reorganized
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. It's the main temple
in Independence, Mo., President Truman's old home town. It's a very
young Christian church, only about 150 years, and they came to me
and asked for a form that would not be like other Christian churches
but something quite different. Their ministry is very interested
in going worldwide. So I tried to come up with a form that would
be sort of universal, and I proposed the idea of a seashell and
they loved the idea. It's almost complete now; it's a church that's
a spiral.

I was just there last week. It rises 200 feet inside. It's a very
interesting building because from the outside it looks very strong
and masculine with the shell form, but once you go inside it's sort
of like clouds up there as the spiral goes up and it's very feminine
inside.

Region: What project did you most enjoy working on or the
one that you would most like to be identified with?

Obata: When you have a lot of children you don't play favorites.

Region: Which one was the most challenging?

Obata: Working on the projects in Saudi Arabia was very
challenging because of the long distance and doing work so far away.
I did two major projects therethe airport and the university.

Region: What aspects of design do you find most satisfying?

Obata: I find the conceptual side most interesting. When
you get all of the requirements together and you sit down and try
to figure out what best direction you should go.

Region: What role should the client play in the design
process and how do you involve the client?

Obata: I think the client should be very demanding and
be very explicit and clear on what he wants his building to be like,
and to explain every kind of nuance to the architect so the architect
totally understands what he wants from that building. Then the architect
can really use his creative instincts to come up with the best solution.

Region: Clearly technical advances, such as computer-assisted
design (CAD) systems, have had an impact on how architects work.
But have these tools changed the basic role and responsibilities
of the architect? What is that basic role?

Obata: The basic role of the architect again, going back
to our philosophy, is to really understand what the building is
for and then use all his creative instinct to come up with the optimum
solution. That role of an architect hasn't really changed. His responsibility
still is to design the best possible building for his client. But
the computer and CAD system and so forth has really helped him to
make that path easier and to give more information to the client
sooner. For example, this church that I did, which is a very complicated
geometric spiral form, the only way we could do those drawings was
through the computer, CAD-assisted drawings.

Region: You're said to be an avid gardener. What sort of
gardening do you do? Do you specialize?

Obata: I love to have flowers in our house. I love to plant
many, many flowers, both perennials and annuals. So we have flowers
in the house all the time. In the early spring I start with the
seeds. This summer I tried nasturtiums, and I've got nasturtiums
growing all over from seed. Then I love flowers like cleome, which
is a spider plant, and cosmos. And morning glories I grow from seed
and cornflowers. Two years ago I planted some wild flower seeds
in an area that had a lot of sun. This spring we had the most beautiful
phlox and then now it's cornflowers and coreopsis.

Region: How involved do you get in the landscaping of HOK's
buildings?

Obata: I have some very talented landscape architects.
I work with them to decide what direction to take and then they
set up all the pavement and the kind of landscape materials to use
and so forth.

For the Federal Reserve in Minneapolis, the landscape is going
to be one of the most important featureswe will create a beautiful
park-like feel.

Region: You've probably noticed that in Minneapolis people
take gardening very seriously because there is such a short growing
season.

Obata: I have a summer home up on Lake Michigan, north
of Traverse City, so the climate is similar to Minneapolis, and
we have to watch what we plant there.

Region: You're also said to be an avid mystery novel reader.
Do you have any mystery authors who you'd like to recommend?

Obata: My favorite is Tony Hillerman from New Mexico. He's
just a marvelous writer. Not only a wonderful writer, but his stories
are also very interesting. I'd say he's my favorite writer.

Region: As a final question: Some people have voiced concerns
over plans for a new Minneapolis Fed building. Is there anything
that you would like to share with our readers about the project?

Obata: I would say that this is an opportunity to create
an environment for the people at the Federal Reservean opportunity
for them and for us to really work together and come up with the
nicest working environment for the people thereparticularly
if the site selected is a great site.